Time Slips By
by Lune-Solei
Summary: OneShot. I don't think it's that good but whatever. I can't really describe it either. Odd and Sam. Sad, angst, death. R&R please.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters, except Gabriell and Anika.

**Pairings:** Odd/Sam

**Author's Note:** I can guarantee this isn't that good. I wrote it in an hour. It was burning to get out and I just feel like posting it. I didn't have anyone beta it. I didn't even go back and beta it. I just wrote wrote wrote and this is what came out. It might be a bit rushed to... Thanks if you actually read it. :sigh: Sorry if it sucks. Review please.

_**I **_was grinning like a fool. I always grin like a fool. I'm cursed with fooleratis. Ask anyone and they'll agree with me one hundred percent. But I was happy and that was all that mattered to me.

We had decided to do one last crazy thing before our lives changed radically. It was after graduation, neither of us could believe that we'd managed to make it. She had skipped, I had slept, but it didn't matter, yesterday we'd received our diplomas. By the end of June everything'd be changing.

Ulrich was leaving, a full scholarship to some school in America. Jeremie and Aelita were headed for Oxford. Yumi was going to school in Italy of all places. Who heard of university in _Italy_? Sam was going to art school in Paris, I'd be in New Zealand. We'd grown up together and now we were all leaving, the four corners of the world.

That's why we were heading to the Riviera at break neck speed. She was laughing next to me, hair streaming in the wind caused by the cars speed. I'd saved up all my money and bought a used convertible. It was fine except for a little tear in the back seat, but I thought that gave it class. She'd used it as a way to get into that school of hers, splashing paint on it in haphazard designs. The professors thought it was brilliant and unusual. I thought it was just like her.

We took a turn and then, there it was, the Riviera was laid out to us. The water was a beautiful blue, she called it cerulean, and it was foaming as it hit the shoreline. I grinned, driving right out onto the shore and parking, jumping out of the car, who needed doors anyway?

"Come on!"

I grabbed her, dragging her down and into the waves. The water was cold even though it was the hottest day so far this year. She shrieked as the water hit her and we splashed around, laughing until we had to sit on the sand to catch our breath.

"Lets build a fire," she said suddenly, looking at me. She was soaked through, so was I, a piece of kelp tangled in her hair and she was stringing seashells together on a strand of fishing line she'd found. She looked like a mermaid, a goddess of the sea. "Why are you smiling like that?" I leaned in and kissed her.

We built the fire. It took us all afternoon to find dry or semi-dry pieces of driftwood and the inside of the teepee was made of dry kelp and long grass to help it burn easier. We had some stones around it and put potatoes and corn that we'd wrapped in foil on them to cook. Then we sat back and enjoyed the blaze of gold and red as the sun set over the ocean.

"Look, there's the Ursa minor," she said, pointing up at the sky, "and Orion's belt." I smiled, watching her explain the mythology behind each of the constellations. She had always been interested in astronomy, that's why it surprised me that she'd chosen art. "You know, your marshmallow's burning," she said a few moments later. I realized that I had forgotten to take it off. Oh well, charcoals good for you, right?

**We** spent a week there, wrapped up in blankets, living on the shoreline. It was exhilarating. Tomorrow we'd have to head back. She needed to get settled in her dorm, I needed to catch a flight to New Zealand.

"Odd?"

"Hm?" I turned on my side, looking at her.

"When you look into the future...what do you see?"

I sat up, poking the fire so that it sparked and caught on the bits of driftwood left, adding another log. She sat up as well, watching me watch the sea. What did I see in my future? What did I see in the future? I couldn't answer, I didn't know. I gave a shrug, grinning. "A car trip, a plane ride, University. Parties," I joked.

She frowned, playing with her hair, it was a nervous habit she'd picked up through the years. "I mean it Odd. Be serious. What do you see in the future?"

"That _is_ the future," I pointed out stubbornly. I wasn't going to admit that I wasn't sure, that I was scared about it.

She crossed her arms, then stood, walking down to the shore so that the water lapped her feet. I followed her, wrapping my arms around her waist from behind. She fit so perfectly, then again, it helped that when I turned fifteen I grew about three feet so that I was a normal human height. "What's wrong?" I ask, rubbing her arms.

"You don't take anything seriously!" I start to protest but she steps away, shaking her head. "We're going to University Odd! Where do you see yourself in a month? A year? Ten years?"

"I'll know when I know! Why do I have to have my whole life planned out right now?" I demanded, glaring at her.

"We're eighteen. We should know something!"

"Well then, where do you see yourself in the future?" I demand. I'm furious, I know I'm yelling, I can tell by the way she recoils from me. She never liked getting yelled at. She doesn't say anything, lips forming a thin line across the lower half of her face. "See! You can't yell at me if you don't know. Life is to unpredictable to know anything for sure!"

She shakes her head and pulls her jacket closer as the wind picks up. "I see myself having graduated highschool, starting out at a business, no, I'm not sure which one yet, and saving to start my own photography studio. I plan to have a house by then," she tells me. I stare at her and she backs farther away from me. "I plan to be dating someone, maybe even engaged. I want a family, I want children." I say nothing and she gives a small nod, brushing past me and disappearing up to the fire.

**We** didn't speak after I dropped her off at her University. I went on to New Zealand, majored in marine biology, graduated, and stayed there. It was Ulrich actually, Ulrich who had always hated her, or distrusted her, who eventually told me.

It had been Christmas and I was with my family, he had called. I was elated, probably only slightly intoxicated, mumbling about this and that. Wanting to know about him and Yumi, amazing that they'd finally gotten together, isn't it? Telling him how I hadn't heard from Jer or Aelita in ages. He'd finally gotten a word in when I stopped to take a breath.

"Sam's dead."

"What?" I couldn't believe it. Anika, the girl I was dating currently looked over at me, raising an eyebrow. I turned away from her, facing the wall. Ulrich was silent, letting it sink in. "What?" I repeated again, softer. "How?"

He hesitated a moment, clearly unsure, then forged ahead. "It was a car accident. She and her husband were driving down to the Riviera," I swallowed, "and part of the street was iced over. They flipped. She died at the hospital. Her husband died at the scene." I didn't know why he added that last bit of information. I didn't care about her husband. "They saved the baby."

"Baby?" I repeated, unsure if what I heard was right.

"You didn't know...?"

"Know what, spit it out Ulrich!"

"She was pregnant. The doctors did an emergency c-section. They saved the baby."

"So?" I could hear my voice rising again and Anika looked over again, so did mom.

"It's a little girl. Her name is Gabriell Odette." Ulrich paused and I gripped the phone harder, feeling the plastic bite into my hand. I didn't care anymore. "She left you as guardian," he finished, finally.

I froze. Time froze. I'd always liked kids, they were cute, sweet, but I didn't want any. Not for awhile anyway. I was single, young, just starting out and my job meant traveling. I couldn't take a kid with me. Sam must've been nuts.

"Odd?"

"Huh?"

Ulrich cleared his throat and vaguely I realized that this must be hard on him too. "Did you hear what I said?"

"Yeah..my ex-girlfriend's dead and I just inherited her daughter. Shit Ulrich, I don't know what to do with kids!"

"Come to the hospital after Christmas. See her. If you don't want her, put her up for adoption. The funeral's the twenty-seventh," he told me. I agreed, reluctantly. "I've got to run. I'm sorry Odd." The line went dead before I could say bye and I sighed, sitting on the chair.

I tried to imagine the sort of guy that Sam would marry. Probably tall, light eyes? Dark hair? Doctor? Lawyer? No...probably another artist. I sighed, leaning back and when my brother offered me another drink, I took it gratefully.

**She** was beautiful. I stood, watching her through the glass and Ulrich came up next to me, handing me a Styrofoam cup of coffee. "How'd you know that she'd died?" I asked softly.

"I was interning here when she died," he replied. I glanced at him in surprise. "I decided to go into medical school."

"Really?" He nodded and I sighed.

"I'm sorry Odd." I shook my head and he gave me a reassuring smile. "She told me she wished you hadn't lost touch. And she hoped you'd take care of Gabriell." I nodded mutely, forcing tears back. I refused to cry. The nurse exited the baby room, smiling as she held a baby wrapped in a pink blanket.

"Are you the father?" she asked.

Ulrich smiled, looking at me. "Guess so," I muttered, taking the squirming cocoon. The little girl was beautiful. She had the steel blue eyes all babies had, but I could see a thin band of emerald around them and cocoa colored skin.

"Are you going to be okay?" Ulrich asked, looking at me cautiously.

I gave a small smile, looking up from the baby in my arms. "Yeah...I'll manage," I said, softly.

"Come on Odd," he said, his voice just as soft as mine. I glanced from him to the baby and back to him. "You can deal with the legal stuff tomorrow," he said, reading my mind. I nodded and we headed for the elevator.

I said a silent good bye to Sam.


End file.
